Research On Religion » atheists

Rodney Stark on The Triumph of Faith

tonygill — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 10:21:04 +0000

The decline of religion around the world may be greatly exaggerated. This is the assertion made by Dr. Rodney Stark — co-founder and director of Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion and frequent guest on our program. He backs his claim with extensive survey evidence from a number of polling organizations (namely the Gallup World Poll) and other bits of evidence from scholarly studies. We take a tour de force of religion around the world to see that faith is as strong as ever, even in the United States.

Surveys by Pew Forum and the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) have indicated religious practice is on the decline in the United States. Tony asks Rod whether he has seen a similar trend in his own research using the Baylor Religion Study. While there has been an increase in the number of individuals who claim “no religious affiliation” or the infamous “nones” discussed by Pew, Prof. Stark notes that this really affects religious affiliation and not necessarily belief. His own examination of “nones” indicates that a substantial number of them still believe in God, pray weekly, and occasionally attend worship services. He also notes that many individuals who proclaim no traditional religious affiliation believe in “non-conventional” forms of the supernatural such as various New Age ideas of spirituality or entities such as elves. Tony points out that even in Iceland where attendance at church services is near the lowest in the Christian world, there is still a strong belief in elves to the point where people will hire clerics to investigate whether such creatures are inhabiting land they plan to build upon. Our conversation at this point also covers some issues with survey methodology and Rod explains the reason he is relying upon the Gallup World Poll for much of his research data.

We then expand our exploration to the rest of the world outside of the US and Europe. Whereas Europe has not seen any significant increase in religious practice or belief recently (outside of Muslim immigrants), the rest of the globe is experiencing a major explosion in religious affiliation, practice, and belief. Rod lists a couple statistics to bolster this point, including 81% of the world population claiming to belong to some organized religious faith, 71% saying that religion is important in their lives, and 51% having participated in some organized form of worship in the past week. Atheism rates remains relatively stagnant with only three countries registering more than 20% of the population as non-believers. Attendance and affiliation remains most flaccid in Europe. This continent registers low among individuals who attend religious services largely because Christianity was never deeply embedded in a number of these countries to begin with (particularly in Northern Europe) and monopolized state churches have little incentive to recruit and serve members, according to Prof. Stark.

Moving from the least religiously active part of the world, we then travel to Africa where religious practice has been growing exponentially. This is particularly true in sub-Saharan Africa where there was nary a Christian on the continent in the late 1800s, but a vast majority now proclaim Christianity and attendance rates are the highest in the world. Rod points out that this is not only due to missionary work by Europeans in the early 20th century who introduced the faith, but more importantly is the result of indigenous church growth — i.e., Africans developing and organizing their own Christian denominations. Catholicism also shows strong growth in the region, surprising even the Vatican itself with its strong indigenous roots. We talk briefly about Islam in Northern Africa, and how contact between Muslims and Christians has created unfortunate conflict in some parts of the continent.

Asia is our next region of focus. Having recently co-authored a book with Xiuhua Wang on Christianity in China (see below), Rod explains how this country poses a unique challenge to secularization theory. While China is modernizing rapidly, it is also Christianizing equally fast and despite attempts by the communist regime to suppress or control the growth. Interestingly, the growth in religious practice is coming amongst the most educated and prosperous in Chinese society. While the central regime in China is concerned about this religious growth, many local officials take a hands-off approach to the practice of house churches. Tony speculates that there may be many parallels between what is currently happening in China to what went on in the pre-Constantine Church in the first three centuries. Japan becomes the next topic of conversation. Here, religious practice remains rather low. Rod points out that even with high rates of unbelief, many people still rely upon Shinto priests to bless their autos, homes, and even military equipment (which Tony mentions from a previous podcast with Ron Hassner).

Our last two topics cover Latin America and Islam. In the former, religious practice has increased dramatically despite the notion that Latin Americans have always been (since colonization) firmly Catholic. Prof. Stark tips his hat to Tony’s own research on the region and how Protestant missionaries in the 20th century lit a competitive fire underneath the Catholic Church, which prompted this institution to better serve its parishioner base. We discuss how the Latin American Catholic Church, whereas it used to rely upon imported priests, now sees significant growth in native seminarians and Rod provides an interesting anecdote from his time in California about how competition from Pentecostals motivated a Catholic parish. We touch a bit on Islam noting that while religious practice has been relatively high in North Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, this faith has become “more intensified” in recent decades. The display of religious symbols (e.g., hijab) has become more pronounced, and Rod discusses how Islam provides a great deal of internal religious competition that can give rise to this, particularly in an environment that is showing increased resentment of Western morals.

We finish off with some reflections on secularization theory and why this perspective is still so entrenched in the Academy. Prof. Stark shares some comments on political correctness and encourages more honest research amongst intellectuals. Recorded: December 30, 2015.

Rodney Stark on How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists

tonygill — Sun, 05 May 2013 08:00:21 +0000

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Religious folks would agree that religion is pretty good for them. But is a more religious society good for the entire society as a whole, including non-believers? We take a look at the “positive spillover effects” that spiritual belief and church attendance has on the population as a whole with Prof. Rodney Stark, frequent guest and co-director of Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. (Disclaimer: Baylor’s ISR is the sponsor of our podcast.) Our conversation begins with a discussion about how religious America really is. Recent students appear to indicate increasing non-participation, particularly among the young, and the newly-defined category of “nones” has become a regular talking point in the popular media. Prof. Stark puts these studies into perspective noting some methodological issues with these studies, but also notes that the “nones” — when examined more closely — actually behave rather religiously, including engaging in regular prayer. Rod mentions that the problem may not be so much as a loss of faith amongst the population, but rather a current weakness among churches to provide an adequate set of services. We then talk about a variety of benefits that a religious, and churched, population brings to society as a whole, including atheists. Our first stop on this journey deals with crime and its flipside, “pro-social behavior.” Despite having an image of a society out of control, Rod points out that “secular” (or “unchurched”) Europe has much higher crime rates in almost all categories except murder. We then discuss how and why religion may help to ameliorate crime by promoting pro-social behaviors, a seemingly obvious notion that has often been overlooked by criminologists. Religion not only decreases crime, but it promotes pro-social behavior such as helping people on the side of the road and donating blood, which moves us into a discussion about voluntarism. Contrary to the oft-cultivated notion that religious folks only provide charity or donate time to their own religious organizations, Rod points out that religious individuals are more engaged in secular organizations than secular folks. This moves our conversation into the realm of civic (political) involvement, and again the data show that religiously-active individuals shine in this area as well, and this includes not only evangelical Protestants, but Catholics, Jews, and members of other faith traditions. Tony then notes that being a “community volunteer” is not the only way to benefit a community, but rather being successful in one’s own chosen profession and not becoming a burden on society is also a way of benefitting the society at large. Rod talks about how religious individuals are, on average, more successful in business than secular individuals and are less likely to become a burden on society. This move us then to the issue of education and how homeschooling, promoted largely by religious individuals, has transformed the educational system to the point where many institutions of higher learning are taking note. Again, this provides a great many “positive externalities” for the local and national community. We then tackle intellectual life by playing off Mark Noll’s famous book about the lack of an “evangelical mind,” and Rod shows — to the contrary of Noll’s assertion — that religious individuals contribute greatly to intellectual life and high culture in the U.S. We finish off the interview with a discussion of health-related issues, including both physical and mental health. Both Tony and Rod share their various outrages at some of the very odd studies that have looked at the interconnection between religion and health. And just to spice things up on RoR, we get into a bit of a discussion about s-e-x, as well as how that relates to a bigger issue facing the Western world — fertility. Recorded: April 30, 2013.

Jeremy Lott on America’s Shifting Religious Election Coalition

tonygill — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 08:00:19 +0000

What hath Election 2012 wrought? Are we witnessing a re-alignment of religious voters with Catholics shifting away from the Democrats and evangelicals becoming comfortable with a Mormon running for national office? Jeremy Lott, author and editor of RealClearReligion (among other sites), joins us to talk about his new, free e-book entitled Mitt Romney’s Mormon-Christian Coalition. We start off first, though, by examining if there have been any trends in how the media have dealt with the religious angle in the current election. Jeremy’s role with RealClearReligion gives him an advantage in answering this question and he provides some interesting insights on how places like The New York Times have covered religion. We then spend a short bit of time to look at how atheists have tried to get in the mix of electoral politics by putting up images of Jesus on toast and a man in glowing underwear before the Democratic and Republican national conventions. Our discussion then turns to how Democrats have dealt with religion in recent years and how President Obama’s seeming lack of faith (as viewed in opinion polls) and how the debate over contraception and abortion in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare) has affected religious voters, particularly Catholics. Indeed, the politics behind getting Obamacare passed and how regulations were later imposed despite initial understandings of what that legislation would do may have shattered a fragile coalition that Democrats have maintained with Catholics since Roe v Wade and the Hyde Amendment prohibiting funding for abortion at the federal level. Tony wonders how much lay Catholic voters will respond to criticisms of the Obama Administration levelled by various Catholic Church leaders. We then look at how Mitt Romney may be using this growing rift to his advantage, in part by choosing Paul Ryan, a practicing Catholic, as his running mate. We also look at how Romney has tried to assuage the fears of evangelical leaders who have had a suspicion of Mormon religious views, and how Romney infused the Republican National Convention with how Mormon values are American values without making overt appeals to Mormonism. Jeremy also notes how Mitt’s missionary background has been influential in crafting his political career, including a life-threatening car crash. The claim is made that his ability to speak to different audiences as a missionary has affected how he positions himself on various political issues, sometimes giving him the image of being a flip-flopper. But Jeremy notes that this is also an indication of how Romney learns over time and that there is no “Romney-ism” but rather a pragmatic turn-around artist who is also a skillful politician. During an earlier point in the podcast, Jeremy claims that he will “eat his hat” if the Republicans take Pennsylvania in the presidential election, a claim that Tony intends to revisit in several weeks. Recorded: October 15, 2012.